Now Alessia would be 37 years old and her father often thinks about her as an adult, about what she would have become if twenty years ago today, on July 2, 2004, a plane crash in Panama had not ended her life and that of her mother. Paola DiGregorio. Alessia had lived long days in a coma in Quito, due to anaphylactic shock, during a study trip but she was recovering and in a few hours she would return home: «Unfortunately, things went differently», says the father John Mairati who, in her memory, two years later, created the association «Casa Alessia».
From the capital of Ecuador, the girl sent long emails to her family in which she told of her discovery of a world different from Italy, a world of orphanages and children who smile despite everything, of poverty and need. In those writings Alessia said that in life she would have liked to do something to change the destiny of the little ones; and her words, after that accident, became a sort of spiritual testament for her father.
“After her death, I immediately contacted Ecuador to build an orphanage, but the proposed project was not what Alessia had dreamed of, so I gave up. Then, thanks to Rotary, I was notified of the Sisters of Charity’s activities in Burundi and I decided to start from there,” says Giovanni. “When I built that home for lonely children, I understood that it was the path to follow, that an impromptu project, however significant, would not be enough for me.”
Since then, «Casa Alessia» has built orphanages, schools and mothers’ centres in two other locations in Burundi, in India, in Nepal and in Romania.in Novara, in the earthquake zone of Norcia and also in Ecuador, where it all began. The next project will be again in Burundi where the expansion of a school that already hosts 450 children will be realized.
Two million euros were spent just to build the structures, in addition to the funds for their maintenance and to support families in need. “Our donors are all private individuals, they are people who send us a few euros or large sums,” Mairati says. “We have respect and are grateful for every gift: when I see a transfer of seven euros, I think of the effort that person must have made to deprive themselves of it and I am moved.”
Time has passed, fast and slow depending on the moment, and now «Casa Alessia» is big: it is based in Novara but also has groups of volunteers in Bologna and Rome, in Tuscany, in Puglia. «Twenty years have passed since the accident – says father Giovanni -. The pain of the beginning is no longer there but every year, in the days between June 10th when I received the phone call announcing Alessia’s illness, and until July 2nd, the day of the accident, for me it’s like going back in time.. I look through my memories and it’s tiring. Luckily there are projects for children, those that help me find joy.” —
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